Busy days – Friday.

Last couple of days I’ve tried to pack loads in, so you’re about to get two blog posts for the price of one.

Friday – got up reasonably early (think it was well before 9) to do some craft with Big before we headed off out for the day. Thursday afternoon (ah yes, it’s all coming back to me now) I’d sent her off with some book I’d found – 50 ways for kids to save the earth or some such, and she’d been horribly depressed by the fact that she couldn’t do any of them quickly. Then we got creative and started thinking about cutting down on disposable stuff, and that led to tissues, so I found an old muslin and we cut it up into squares and she hemmed it with her Sewing Machine.

All of this took quite some time, so we ran out of time to decorate the new handkerchiefs, which brings me back to getting up early Friday morning.

So there I am, being asked to help embroider a handkerchief. Fortunately, I’d bought a magazine half price in hobbycraft a couple of weeks ago that had simple templates for flowers and step by step instructions, so I got a soft pencil, drew a stem on for her, and showed her back stitch (or whatever it’s called).

That occupied us up until time to get ready to go out. We were only going to Kirsty’s for a couple of hours, so obviously this necessitated full on military planning. Children. Check. Skateboard. check. Helmet and pads, check. You get the picture. Must have taken me about 4 trips just to get everything in the car, and even then I forgot the chocolate bits.

Round to Kirsty’s and the kids cleared off upstairs for us to have a cup of tea and a chat, which was good. Then they came back downstairs, not so good, kind of loud in fact, and Kirsty and I reached for the paracetamol. Fed them, and then got the scooter/ skateboard and all other accessories out of the car and headed off round to the park. Actually, park is overstating it really. There’s a couple of very faded climbing frames, frames for 8 swings currently occupied by two, that were themselves occupied by two large teenage boys with mobile phones, and then several places that look like they ought to have had stuff there. There are plenty of benches around for adults to rest on, and one of them had one cross piece left on it, so we got to sit down. I tried to ignore the liberal sprinkling of bits of broken glass and the children ran around a lot and shouted.

They had about half an hour of playing and then we headed back as Tim was due to meet us at 14.30 to pick up children so that I could hare off to an opticians appt unencumbered. He rang to say he was running late, so we rearranged to meet at M’hell itself – having checked that build-a-bear workshop is one of two shops now open on that street. Somehow, despite knowing that I needed to leave at 14.30, I forgot about the time required to load two children into a car, so it was nearly 14.40 by the time we got away. And M’Hell is really near, so obviously we got stuck in all sorts of traffic and arrived in the car park near Tim two minutes after my appt was due to start. So I gave him the car keys and legged it.

I was going to the opticians to get contact lenses again. I miss them. I hate wearing glasses – it just isn’t me at all. So I got to sit in a quiet place and have someone look at my eyes and arrange it all again, and then discovered that despite being called a one hour optical centre, they don’t keep gas permeables on site, so I’ve got to go back in a week to do the fitting and everything. Wah!

Which also meant that I caught up with the rest of the family in build-a-bear – Small was wandering around wanting to buy a pirate top to go with the pirate shorts that Frog already has, and I reminded him that he also wanted a skateboard. Couldn’t face him getting home without it and then remembering! Big bought a cowboy hat and a sun shade. No, I didn’t get it either. Then we headed off to ModelZone as Tim wanted to buy an airfix kit to do with Small, and we also got a couple of educational kits reduced in their sale. Shortly after that Small announced he wanted to go home, so Tim departed with the children and I got to wander around without them for a bit.

First stop, Superdrug, to have a polite argument with the check out woman when she rang up the sale at £2.36 after I’d calculated it at £2.00. I was right, the till was wrong, but this required fetching a supervisor to check the price and overrule the till. Anyone else remember “we get it bleeping wrong, you get it bleeping free”? Wish a few shops still had that operational, it would cut my shopping bills in half. On to Poundland, where at least you know where you stand as far as prices go. Got some more craft kits for Big and Small and some other bits and pieces. Then back to the car to go to the retail park to pick up Big’s craft bag. She’d decided on the click’n’go tote, and it was listed at an extremely competitive price in HobbyCraft. Got her an embroidery hoop and her own set of needles as well, thinking that that would go down well.

Au Naturale next door had big signs saying 20% off everything, so I couldn’t resist wandering in, although I resisted buying anything until I spotted some Guatemalan Worry People. Picked those up for Big then had to wait for them to find a cashier that was signed on to the tills, and for them to finish complaining about customers coming into their shop so late in the evening. (It’s open til 20.00, it was barely gone 18.00!) Home in time for good night kisses. Then waited for Big to come downstairs to complain she couldn’t get to sleep and gave her her dolls.

You’ll have to wait for the next blogpost to find out whether they worked 😉